208. [GLOBE]. LORING, Josiah. Loring’s Terrestrial Globe Containing, all the Late Discoveries and Geographical Improvements, also the Tracks of the Most Celebrated Circumnavigators. Compiled from Smith’s New English Globe, with Additions and Improvements by Annin & Smith. Revised by Russell Park 1846. Manufactured by Gilman Joslin Boston. Boston, 1846. Globe covered with 12 copper-engraved paper gores and 2 polar galottes with original full and outline hand coloring; diameter: 30.5 cm; overall height: 43 cm. Original four-legged maple stand with mahogany horizon ring (with printed astronomical and zodiac data), maple stretchers, brass meridian, brass hour pointer at top; galottes engraved with hour rings in both directions. A few light rubs, one dime-size loss in Southern Ocean (with a crude attempted restoration and facsimile replacement), one dime-size neatly repaired spot at northeast coast of United States (no loss of original image), globe slightly off axis, rubs at horizon ring, small void in Western United States. Pleasing, rich amber patina, virtually all place names visible, original hand coloring discernible and printed surface sharp. Very handsome.

Josiah Loring (1775-ca. 1840), one of the most prolific early globe makers of the United States, sold globes as early as 1832 and advertised that they were superior to British globes (while using the work of London map and globe maker C. Smith Company). The present globe was issued by Loring’s successor, Gilman Joslin, revised from the 1845 edition, now showing Texas as a state after annexation, but before the 1867 version showing Dakota Territory. Gilman Joslin (1804-ca. 1886) commenced making globes for Josiah Loring in 1837. Eventually he took over the Loring firm and made globes using his name and Loring’s. Dekker & Van der Krogt, Globes from the Western World, pp. 126 (illustration of 1833 Loring globe), 139-140, 176-177. Ristow, American Maps & Mapmakers, pp. 89-92. Warner in “The Geography of Heaven and Earth” in Rittenhouse: Journal of the American Scientific Instrument Enterprise (Vol. II, No. 4, pp. 110-112 & Vol. II, No. 3, pp. 100-103). See also: David M. Rumsey & Edith M. Punt, Cartographica Extraordinaire: The Historical Map Transformed (Redlands: ESRI, 2004), where Loring’s predecessor 1833 terrestrial globe is illustrated at pp. [1] and 137 and on back of dust jacket.

The high quality of Josiah Loring’s Boston globes won him many awards and high praise, and he created this handsome globe during his first year of independent production. During the eighteenth century, most globes in America were imported from England, and Loring was among the earliest pioneers in the commercial manufacture of globes in the U.S. In the 1830s Loring’s globes were awarded medals and honors at the Franklin Institute, the American Institute, and the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association; the judges of the latter association commented on Loring’s work:

The resolution with which the indefatigable maker of these globes has persevered, at very great expense, and with little expectation of ever being adequately remunerated, till he has overcome the many and serious difficulties in the way, in introducing a new branch of manufactures, and has brought every part of the work to a high degree of perfection, deserves unqualified praise.

In the disputed area between the Rocky Mountains and Pacific Ocean, the globe shows the present-day Canada-U.S. boundary. Also located are the tribes of the Snake, Blackfoot, Shoshone, Crow, Chipeway, Comanche, Choctaw, Pawnee, and Tejuas. Only national boundaries are shown in the United States (all the way to Oregon). The globe contains the tracks of several major voyages, including Vancouver, La Pérouse, Wilkes, Clerke, Cook, et al. Important stopping points are shown and major events are noted, for example, at Hawaii, we read: “Here Capt. Cook was killed 1779.” The only sites located in Texas are rivers and the bays of St. Bernard and Galveston. Just south of Santa Fe in New Mexico is “San Felipe,” the original name of Albuquerque.